The Melheimian Sabbatiblog

Designing Memories

Have you ever thought about intentionally designing memories for your children? What if, once a year, you were to kidnap your kids and create something they could take with them out of childhood? What memories would you want them to have? What memories would you want them to have of you?  What messages would you design to be attached to those memories?

My son turns 13 this week. Here's the memory I wanted to design for him:

On Thursday Joseph was disappointed. His church junior high ski trip had just been cancelled. There was no school scheduled for Friday, so with the help of Frequent Flyer tickets and an understanding wife, I decided to kidnap both of my kids and drag them along on a business trip. The business?

Creating a memory.

The kidnapping turned into a surprize weekend ski trip and a day at the X Games in Aspen, Colorado.
Since I had a little work to do with Chris Tribble of Versatile Productions and Christy Smith of www.christy'skids.tv in Aspen, and since Chris had some extra beds in his house (hey, I'm cheap) the kidnapping seemed like the right thing to do.

We spent five glorious hours in the car driving together from Denver to Aspen. We listened to the 20 new FINK Music Guild Bible songs (they sing back-up vocals), enjoyed the bright snow, and ate some terribly unhealthy food. A chance encounter with four elk along the road, the sun filtering through  heavily-laden pine trees and some down time to just soak in all the beauty made for a wonderful drive. We also talked about working on your dreams, shooting for the stars with goals, and turning negative set-backs (like a canceled trip or a business challenge) into launch pads for even greater things.

We skiied Copper Mountain on Friday, spent Saturday at the X Games (Christy's brother Jason, qualified for the Olympics as a snowboarder), and yesterday in 8 inches of new powder at Snowmass.

Chris has been filming the XGames for ABC/ESPN since he was a high schooler, skiing backwards with a camera as fast as the skiiers were skiing forwards. He was able to get us into all the right places to meet the right people. (He even knew where to park.) Christy Smith is the deaf woman who made it 33 of 39 days on Survivor Amazon. Chris and Christy are helping us with some rather fantastic web deliverable pieces of Bible Song Sunday which are still under wraps for a couple months. I spend one of the 72 hours talking business and looking at some tapes. The rest was all for the kids.

The trip back to Denver last night was twice as long as the trip there. It seems the whole state of Colorado decided to drive back to the city at the same moment on I-70. Bumper to bumper full stopped traffic on the highway for 70 miles. Even that long drive was a blessing, though, because it gave me another captive audience with my 17 year old Kathryn and my soon-to-be 13 year old Joseph.

Last night we stayed with the Nordhagens, in the home where we spent our sabbatical year last year. This morning Kathryn snuck in to her old school, Ponderosa High, for a quick hello with some old friends. Joseph slept in, and is at this moment playing video games on the Nordhagen's big screen tv - his favorite pass time during our stay last year.

In a half hour I'll be taking them to the Denver Airport, then driving back to Aspen to finish the taping project with Chris and Christy.

All in all, it was a successful kidnapping, and a daddy/kid weekend that I think and hope and pray  they'll remember the rest of their lives.

So, what does this mean for us?

Maybe we should all be more intentional about the memories we want our kids to have of us. Maybe we should practice "Parenting by Design" (a book I'd like to write some day). Maybe we should all put more creativity and imagination into the bits and scraps of childhood memory that we want our kids to take with them into their adult lives.

Okay, let's be reasonable for a moment. Maybe you don't have a bazillion frequent flyer miles racked up and can't go to Aspen at the last minute when your church ski trip folds, but you can be more intentional about the memories you want your kids to have of you. Maybe you can do something today on purpose to your kids know how much you love them. Maybe you can plan a mini-vacation to the coffee shop this week just to talk with your kids. Maybe you can stage a kidnapping of your own this month to remind them who they are to you. And with a little creativity, a little intentionality, and a little planning, maybe you can design and create one memory this year that they'll take with them out of childhood and cherish for the rest of their lives.

Maybe we all should put some thought into the concept of designing memories. Maybe one a year enough.

Post Script

Both Mike Yaconelli (rest his soul) and Tony Campolo (don't rest his soul quite yet) mentored me years ago with the advice to kidnap my own kids from time to time. If you're on the road doing ministry, drag them along every year. Let them meet the wonderful and strange people you meet. Let them see what you do and why you do it. Let them see how big and beautiful the world is, how important it is to connect with Christians all over the world to do God's work, and let them know that they are precious to you, even when you are away.

Thanks Mike and Tony and Worldperks and Chris and Christy for a great weekend!

And thanks, God, for the 8 inches of new powder when we skipped church Sunday morning to praise you for the beauty of creation at 11,000+.

(More photos to the right in the Aspen X Games gallery)

 

Night

A student asks a rabbi...

"Is it when, from a great distance, you can tell a dog from a sheep?" one student asked.

"No," said the rabbi.

"Is it when, from a great distance, you can tell a date palm from a fig tree?" another student asked.

"No," said the rabbi.

"Then when is it?" the students asked.

"It is when you look into the face of any human creature and see your brother or your sister there. Until then, night is till with us."

Boys & Potato Gun Evangelism

Potato Gun Evangelism

Their "highs" are always about events and friends. Something they are looking forward to, or something they just did with friends. Mini-golf in the basement and breaking a lamp. Friends. Snowboarding and getting kicked off the slopes for throwing a frozen rubber glove filled with water. Friends. A three-day weekend coming up. Friends.

Their collective "lows" are always related to school. They all hate it. It gets in the way of video games. They don't like the English teacher. Math sucks. It's only Wednesday and they have two more days of torture. They got in trouble for falling asleep because they stayed up until 4 am... with their friends.

They are seventh grade boys.

Yesterday's cover article "Boys in Crisis" in Newsweek and last night's Servant Event with the six  boys from our confirmation small group went hand-in-hand. After finishing three years as small group guides for our daughter and five girls, my wife and I are now doing three years with our son and six boys. They're great kids with all the fun, energy, and challenges that go along with adolescence. They keep us honest and force a fair amount of creative management skills out of us. We're committed to taking them through confirmation, and then into senior high breakfast club. This isn't a sprint. (You couldn't keep up with them). We're in it for the long haul.

At FINK we suggest you do monthly Servant Events with your small groups to put your faith into action. We're always looking for some relevant activity which we can turn into fun, learning and bonding. This month our church food shelf was in need of post-holiday restocking, so we told each of our young men to bring some money (their own money - not borrowed) and we'd go shopping.

Six boys emptied their collective pockets and antied up $53 when they appeared at our back door in the ice last night. We piled into the minivan and slip slided away to Cub Foods. A short talk in the car centered around a question: How is it that 1/6 of the kids in the richest land in the world went to bed hungry last night? How is it that 1/3 of the kids here can be living below the poverty line? Closer to home, how can a rich town like Stillwater, MN, run out of food at its food shelves? There were no profound answers at that time.

THE SERVANT EVENT

We split into pairs at the store. For the next 25 minutes each duo was charged with filling their cart with as much reasonably healthy food they could get for the price. (No Jay, Lucky Charms don't exactly qualify.) They were also charged with coming as close to spending $17.66666 as they could without going over. (Making them do math for 25 minutes without them knowing it is a particularly favorite torture of mine.)

The surprize of the night was the new kid, Sam, who showed up out of the blue. Someone invited him. After a night of servanthood in action (and a potato gun fight) Sam now wants to join our group, join the church, and be confirmed! Potato gun evangelism? That's exactly the way it's supposed to happen. Kids reaching out in a natural way to include their friends.

A car-load of kids.

A care-load of kids?

Mix in some fun, some bonding, some talk, some prayer, some adult guidance.

Soon six boys become seven - a definate FINK no-no - but we'll see how it goes. Arlyce and I are doing the group together, so we might be able to manage. If not, we have two of us, so there are options. I may be writinga  "FINK Potatoe Gun Evangelism" book someday. The thesis? If six becomes seven, that's 16.66% growth a year. Not bad. And if seven forces your stock to split by design (miosis or mitosis?) and the same kind of growth occurs in two new cared-for cells , you've got a growth engine that the venture capital folks would notice.

More on that later. Back to the Newsweek article.

It's dead on. Read it and weep. Then stop your sniveling and get your boys into small groups that learn, serve, laugh, serve, pray, serve, and shoot potatoe guns. And have BOTH a male and female leading those groups while you're at it. Seriously. Each will bring something the other can't.

Read beyond the Newsweek article and you'll see that school isn't designed for boys. The time of the day isn't right. (There are still sleep drugs in their brains at 10:30 am). The lecture-based method of teaching doesn't work with the chemistry of their developing brains. The carrot and stick (mostly stick) doesn't work. They've got 30 - 40 kids in a classroom - no personal care - and 35 of them are putting in their time, watching the clock. They see no relevance in what they're learning. There is relatively little engagement, little spark, and dreadfully little reason for the bulk of them to work for  anything more than a marginally passing grade.

The End
So how did last night's Servant Event end? Were there any profound insights on servanthood, world hunger, or Christian activism when we returned to our house for the treat, our standard "Highs & Lows" and prayer?

I'll leave you to judge that for yourself, based on the quotations of the night:

1.     My "low" was an "F" on my math test. - Anonymous Kid
        Did you study? - Anonymous Judgemental Adult
        No. - Anonymous Kid
       Why didn't you study? - Anonymous Judgemental Adult
       You can't study math! It's just a bunch of problems! - Anonymous Kid with Unanymous Group Consent

2. (While reading the Newsweek on the counter) Middle school boys may use their brains less efficiently than girls...  Huh. Does that surprise me? - Tyler

3. My "high" is I get to join this group! - Sam

4. People who shoot potato guns will not shoot them in my car. - Arlyce

5. My chinchilla doesn't have internet. - Joseph

6. My "high" is a three day weekend. My "low" is school. - Nate

That's the depth of our discussion. So, what happened in confirmation last night? Did we accomplish anything?

Well, we did fill a few bags of groceries. Somebody will eat tomorrow. Servanthood.

We did have some fun together. Fellowship.

We did find out some highs and lows. Pastoral Care.

We may or may not have learned that Christ calls us to feed the hungry. Christian Education.

And now seventh grade Sam thinks he wants to be a confirmed Lutheran.

Or at least a kid from the outside wants to be along on events with some new friends and a couple old small group leaders who let him buy a potato gun.

Evangelism. Potato Gun style.

Quote for the Day

Learn to write your hurts in sand. Learn to carve your blessings in stone! - Unknown

I've just been invited by Mim Campbell, the ELCA's Children's Ministry Director, to keynote on what we know about children's ministry at a couple of meetings - one in Chicago and one in Orlando. Since this is only the third and fourth invitation from the national church in twelve years, I'm apt to say yes.

Any suggestions?

Lutheran Billions

By the way, Steve Jobs just sold Pixar to Disney today for $7.5B in an all stock transaction. He is now the single largest share holder of Disney stock. He’s 50 and a Lutheran. (I'm 50 and a Lutheran)

Maybe he’d like to help Lutheran confirmation some day?

If we could get him, and Lutheran confirmation flunkeys Dana Carvey and Bruce Willis together, maybe we could have a ton of fun?

(-; Rich

Burt's Home

Debbie Streicher, our intergenerational ministry director from Burke, Va, has her husband home after his heart attack. After weighing all the options, they chose not to do surgery. Surgery only works to reroute blood to living tissue. The area of his heart affected wouldn't qualify. Here's a Sunday insight from Deb:

"Having learned from this experience that parts of the heart can actually not function again after an arrest,I began to accept the fact that by not doing the any surgery, what remains functional can make up for the loss. But, that involves, you know what! Change, yes, change of life style!

 

In our congregations, there are parts that have literally 'died'. They no longer function the way we want them to, no matter what we do. Some congregations are pouring budgets (re-routing arteries) into old think. What's dead is dead or at least dying. You can re-route all you want, it won't make a difference. The good news is health, growth, and life depend on the part that is alive to make up for the dead part.

By not actually trying to repair 'the way we've always done it' what remains functional makes up

for the loss. This means change!"

I'd add - change or die.

Keep our friends Burt and Debbie and the boys in your prayers, and all those who are working on the living end of the dying church today.

Ask God to give them wisdom on when and how and why and where to do their surgery, and when and how and why and where to let things die so new things can live.

Rich

UCC & Wisconsin Synod & Living Water

Question: What do the UCC and Wisconsin Syond have in common?

Sounds like a bad joke, doesn't it?

Answer: They both want parents and kids to be healthy, to share our FINK "Every night in every home" experience and to introduce their kids to the true living water - Jesus.

And they'll both be here in the next couple days to talk about how we can help work together.

Who else has been here lately?

Monday it was the Japanese Lutheran Church evangelism group. Tuesday it was Craig Settlage, the top clergy health/care leader/assistant to the presiding Bishop of the ELCA, in town to talk with me about what we might do with heads of the five largest main line protestant churches to use a feature film we may be shooting to bring health and healing to churches.

Oh yeah, and my best friend and FINK VP and FINK Foundation board member Arlen Nordhagen has been here for the last 36 hours helping us do some strategic planning, too.

As you can guess, I have the funnest job in the church.

Speaking of Arlen, he just sent this Living Water link along with his top rating.
 

Rich:

This out.  It's very interesting, and a great ministry.

Tom is a great guy I just met a few months ago whose ministry (Healing Waters) works with the barrio ministry that I help in the Dominican Republic (called TEARS).  One of the Healing Waters water purification plants is at the TEARS church/school in LaVega, DR.  We did our mission trips from Puerto Rico over to the TEARS ministry in DR.  Maybe there is some way FINK partners could work with HWI in the future via networking or something.

Arlen

Happy Deathaversary, Martin

From our friend Cliff at www.elderministry.com:

I thought I would drop you a brief note on the eve of the 460^th anniversary of Martin Luther’s death.  Luther died at 3:00 a.m. on February 18, 1546…he was 62 years old.   Luther’s last recorded words were, "Wir sein Bettler. Hoc est verum," "We are beggars. This is true" (Heiko A. Oberman, Luther: Man Between God and the Devil, p. 324).

All that God gives us through his mercy and grace is undeserved.  We are beggars.  Totally dependent on God’s sovereign will and rule we deserve nothing.  With Job we know that God is free (sovereign) to “give and take away,”  and in all circumstances of 2006 may our beggars response be, “Blessed be the name of the Lord”   

Cliff

cliff@elderministry.com

Prayers for Burt

The husband of dear friend and director of intergenerational ministries, Debbie Streicher,  suffered a serious heart attack Saturday.

Burt's heart suffered some pretty major damage, damage that is still being assessed.  They should know by later today if he is a candidate for surgery.

Burt, and Debbie, are among the Lord’s real soldiers – a Christian couple living true Christian lives in a world that does not always treasure such steadfastness.

Please put them on your prayer chains.

If you have time for an encouraging note, send it to: dstreicher@cox.net 

 

Please join me in fervent prayer – for courage, strength, healing, and hope – for Burt, Debbie, and entire the Streicher clan.

Bring it on Home

Bring it on Home

“Faith incubation every night in every home.”

– The New FINK

Mission

Statement

 

Some of you know the origins of Faith Inkubators.

In September of 1993, after a dozen years as a parish pastor and after writing the “Conformation (sic!) is Dead” articles, I took a leave from salary, pension and senses, threw my wife and babies in a borrowed Winnebago and drove off to visit a with few hundred churches to find out what we could invent to fix confirmation.

Seventy five conferences came and went that year. It ended with the Melheims personally $45K in the hole on credit cards, but with an idea that there may be a better way to do confirmation. We also had 270 churches willing to ditch their model and try something new with us. A nice little living laboratory!

I asked my faithful wife, “You want to go double or nothing?” She said “yes” and we spent another year off salary and senses visiting a hundred other churches, doing conferences in 55 cities to learn what we could learn. At the end of the second year, we were $90K in the hole with a double mortgage on the house, 18 credit cards maxed out, nothing put into the pension for the second year, and 540 churches ready to help us design and test a model.

I thought to myself, “Shall I go back into the parish? How long would it take me to make up $90K on a youth pastor’s salary? What the heck! I’ll go double or nothing again! My wife concurred, said more than a bushel of prayers, and off we went again.

Now I’m not a betting man, but we doubled again to 1000 churches without doubling the debt, hired a four staff on faith, arranged for a specialized ministry call, and went out again. And again. And again. And again. And again.

It took us 12 years to design the FINK systems. It took us 12 years of learning, listening, failing, trying, tweaking, designing and redesigning our approach to make the confirmation ministry what it is today. It took 12 years of work, sweat, fun, debt, and commitment to build this marvelous national network of change agents and systems thinkers who want to change the world one family at a time. And it appears it took us 12 years to teach the ELCA to finally change their confirmation paradigm and adopt our model.

12 years to change confirmation.

Now we’re going to spend the next 12 years teaching and learning how to bring it on home.

 

Every night in Every Home

We want to recreate Christian education from a one hour a week class, into an “every night in every home” process. That’s our new mission statement that our new CEO, Brad Lynch, helped us formulate.

We’re going to spend the next 12 years turning confirmation from an adolescent experience to a cradle-to-graduation program. (An 18 year confirmation ministry run by the parents? Ruuuuuunnnnn!)

We will attempt to teach you the best of what we’ve learned over the last decade plus. We will show you ways to change parents from the drop-off parentus absconditus entities, into the primary faith teachers, mentors, guides and shepherds in their own children’s lives with the church as reinforcement – not replacement – of the parents duties.

We will attempt to help you transform your Christian education system from an artificial program to a natural process within the family.

We will a attempt to create an education reform that makes your Christian education system happen 1/8 at church and 7/8 off site with a nightly faith dialogue between parents and children.

We are designing the pieces and the processes as we speak.

Some of us are working 15 hour days right now to get ready to show it to you.

Along with more effective tools, we will unveil the results of our 30 test churches doing Bible Song, our brain-based, arts-based FINKification of upper elementary Christian education.

If you are ready to join us in rethinking your entire faith education/incubation process and ready to stop looking for Sunday School teachers and start enlisting parents to DO and BE what they once promised God they would DO and BE in baptism, we’re ready to teach you what we know.

This is going to be one heck of a spring.

Ready for our own version of the March of the Penguins?

We’re starting very soon.

(And we’re going double or nothing!)

Rich